


paper moon, cardboard sea (not make-believe if you believe in me)

by CanisMajor1234



Series: Kicking Writer's Block [2]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Earthborn (Mass Effect), Flirting, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, neither shepard nor solus are good at this but they're trying real hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-18 02:37:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14203227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CanisMajor1234/pseuds/CanisMajor1234
Summary: "The truth of the matter was that there was no guarantee that they would survive to see their homeworlds again. Like it or not, when they’d thrown their support behind Shepard, every one of Normandy’s crew had signed away their lives. They could die come in the morning, or the next hour, with a bullet in the back or a Collector vessel tearing apart their ship or a Blue Suns sniper leveling them in their sights. They could die jumping through the Omega 4 relay. They could die gathering information on Illium. And Solus’s last memories of his homeworld would be fragmented pictures and the taste of warm Salarian wine."Shepard and Solus have a bonding moment.





	paper moon, cardboard sea (not make-believe if you believe in me)

It wasn’t uncommon for Solus to lose track of time. He set alarms for time-sensitive experiments, of course, kept all of his data logs carefully labelled down to the millisecond. But time as a whole very easily slipped away from him. Food was consumed only when he could spare a thought for it, and sleep was even less of a priority, especially when he started digging his heels into a project. His body had long since learned to go without.

Humans, Solus quickly learned, are not so conveniently built. They cannot work for so long with such intense focus, cannot go so long without sleep and sustenance. They tire easily- a condition Solus quickly learned is called “burning out”. During his time with the Salarian special forces, then in various clinics across the galaxy, he learned to set alarms from when shifts should change for no one’s sake except his assistants. He ate and slept as an example for them to follow. Those days were the healthiest he had been in years.

After Omega, Solus let himself go. The Collectors were the most interesting research project he had ever undertaken. He could spend hours just examining the genetic engineering of their swarms. Had he gotten his hands on their weapons, or bits of his technology, he likely would have torn those apart with the same ferocity. The particle beam that Shepard brought back from Horizon was a curious thing that Solus enjoyed poking and prodding at in his free time. When he had free time, between his own research and missions with Shepard; the man drove them hard toward their goal, whatever it happened to be at the time. 

Not that Shepard was uncaring. Quite the opposite, in fact: the man was incredibly concerned with the state of his crew, both professionally and personally. If something troubled you, Shepard was an ear to listen. It was… relieving. After years of trying to keep his mouth shut and his thoughts in his head, Solus was grateful to finally have someone to spill his theories and hypotheses towards. And Shepard was a fairly intelligent person who was happy to consider and debate the word salad Solus placed before him. 

An alarm beeped: start of Omega shift. Solus drew back from the microscope and blinked. He’d… forgotten that he’d set that. Shepard needed him for a mission on Illium come the Beta shift. For maximum efficiency, it was advisable to get at least four or five hours sleep. He probably needed a shift’s worth of sleep to compensate for the sleep debt that he’d built up over the past couple weeks (months), but he would take what he could get. 

Food first, and water, and then a nap in the sleeper pods. Solus knew that he was procrastinating, taking extra care to logout of his terminals and data-pads and closing up all open containers. He didn’t want to leave his work, though; there was a breakthrough at the tips of his fingers, buzzing under his skin. But working at less than maximum capacity on the ground leads to injury, and Solus couldn’t be the cause of that. 

EDI powered down the lights as Solus left without being asked. 

The elevator ride felt endlessly long; Solus rested against the cool metal and let his eyes flutter closed. He hadn’t realized just how tired he was. Solus couldn’t remember the last time he ate something, or let his eyes close for more than thirty minutes at a time. Three days standard, and then some. So maybe he had pushed himself a little too hard, let time slip away from him. It was something he would have to keep in mind if he intended to stay part of Shepard’s ground party. 

Bright. Very bright. It was dim around the sleeper pods to encourage healthy REM cycles, and in most of the quarters, but the mess was always kept well-lit for late-night wanderers and those brave souls who worked the skeleton crew so that others could sleep safely; it was during the Omega shift that the late Normandy had fallen to the Collectors, and that was often named as the cause for the number of casualties. Solus knew that Yeoman Chambers would still be working well into the Omega shift, and he passed pilot Moreau coming out of the crew quarters after his two-hour standard nap at the end of the Delta shift. Doctor Chakwas cycled through sleep shifts on a four-day schedule, and Shepard…

Shepard leaned against the bar of the mess, pushing food around a black plastic plate. Food on the Normandy was not always very appetizing, as there is only so much one can do with military rations, but the last time they docked at Illium Shepard had been sure to pick up some fresh food for all races. It wouldn’t last them long, but it was a moment of luxury they didn’t often have. Solus himself had hidden some expensive Salarian desserts in the back of the cooler to make sure no one else grabbed it before he got to it. Shepard seemed to be enjoying- or, not- a sandwich of cobbled together from wilted lettuce and white cheese and some kind of unidentifiable cold cuts probably made from synthesized protein. About half of it was gone, but Shepard didn’t seem too keen on finishing the remainder of it. 

“You should be sleeping,” Solus pointed out as he approached the bar. “Early day tomorrow. Lots of work to do. Minimum four hours of sleep required for humans to operate efficiently.”

Shepard looked up with a surprised- or, perhaps, pleased? It was so difficult to tell with humans- blink. He stood a little straighter, stopped playing with his food. “I think I’ll be fine, Solus,” he assured. “It’s not like we’ll be doing anything taxing on Illium. Just some light information gathering.” 

“Unlikely that we will avoid excitement,” Solus pointed out. “Multiple observations support the hypothesis that Commander Shepard cannot seem to entirely keep out of trouble even with simply gathering information.” He meant for it to be joking, tries to keep his voice light and a smile on his lips to get the feeling across. He was disproportionately pleased when Shepard smiled in return.

“You… have a point,” Shepard conceded. The human had an odd little habit of trying to hide his smile behind his hand, as though he were nervous even when pleased. It made Solus tip his head in confusion sometimes. “I’ll try to stay out of trouble tomorrow.”

Solus nodded as he leaned against the bar and stirred his nutrient pack with the hot water. The unsavory grey square quickly softened into a kind of tasteless gruel. It wasn’t the most appetizing meal, not like Shepard’s sandwich, but Solus appeased his hurt palette by reminding himself that it was Omega shift, and he could just dig out those desserts he had hidden away if he wanted something with more flavor.

The smell of the home, soft and floral, cut with the sharp smell of alcohol; Solus looked up in surprise as Shepard pushed a mug of warm Salarian wine over the bar with a smile. Good Salarian alcohol was generally difficult to find outside the Pranas system. Solus wondered as he took the first sip where Shepard might have found this. Maybe from that Asari bartender on Illium. She always seemed to know what her customers needed.

“Doctor Chakwas, actually,” Shepard revealed when Solus asked. “She keeps a couple special bottles in the cooler under her desk. Doesn’t actually mind sharing, so long as you're polite about it.” He swirled his own glass, some kind of amber liquid not far off from the color of his eyes. “It’s not the worst vice she could have, really,” Shepard said, and it was soft and nostalgic. A half-remembered memory. Solus could relate. Both Salarians and humans were a short-lived people, their individual memories short and quick to degrade. His own memories of Sur’Kesh were little more than fragments, dreams that he clung to in vain. 

The truth of the matter was that there was no guarantee that they would survive to see their homeworlds again. Like it or not, when they’d thrown their support behind Shepard, every one of Normandy’s crew had signed away their lives. They could die come in the morning, or the next hour, with a bullet in the back or a Collector vessel tearing apart their ship or a Blue Suns sniper leveling them in their sights. They could die jumping through the Omega 4 relay. They could die gathering information on Illium. And Solus’s last memories of his homeworld would be fragmented pictures and the taste of warm Salarian wine. 

“Music,” Shepard shared when Solus asked what he remembered about Earth. “I grew up in New Shanghai, lower districts. There’s a bar or club every other corner there. If the street is especially crowded, you can almost guarantee that there are going to be street performers too.” He smiled into the rim of his mug, the corners of his eyes tight with exhaustion and nostalgia. “It’s a perfect personification of humanity, if you ask me- fast, loud, and rough. And you never forget the music.” 

Solus blinked. That was… not what he’d expected, when he asked that question. Though, he supposed it would make sense for Shepard’s memories to be visceral, emotional. In accordance with human psychology, those would be the memories to encode most thoroughly. It was not difficult to imagine what Shepard was trying to describe either. Of all the galactic species, humans and Salarians were perhaps the most closely similar, at least culturally. Salarians are more individual than humans, less pack-oriented, but with their short lives and fairly large populations they know the value of living in the moment. “Fast, loud, and rough”, as Shepard put it. Of Sur’Kesh, Solus best remembered…

“Very bright,” Solus said, sudden. Shepard tipped his head to one side, curious. “Sur’Kesh. It was very bright. In the cities. Always. It seemed like they never slept.”

A huff. A smile, half-hidden behind the rim of his glass as Shepard sipped at his drink. Solus wondered if their memories of their homeworlds were similar. Again, similarity of cultures. It would be. Logical. Understandable. 

“Got anyone waiting for you back at home?” Shepard teased. His eyes glinted the same way they often did when he spoke with Chakwas. Though, warmer. Less playful. More. Intense. Maybe. Maybe. Shepard is so many “maybe”s in such a small form. So many contradictions. So interesting. Solus. Curls his lips into a smile. Salacious. It is not an expression Solus wears often. He is. Out of practice. But it is also late, and he is too tired to. Pretend. Too tired right now to do anything but be perfectly honest. To himself. 

To Shepard. 

“Salarian scientists do not often take partners. Our line of business is. Dangerous.” Solus paused, just long enough to figure out how best to phrase this, but not long enough to really think about what he was about to say. “If that is a declaration of interest, however. If inclined to try human, would try you.” 

Shepard. Flushed. Warmer than the alcohol that colors his cheeks, pink right up to his hairline. Smiled, but it’s shier than Solus had previously observed. Solus did not have enough words- English did not have enough words- for how. Pretty. It was. The way Shepard’s eyes sparkled when he leaned a little bit forward, grinning with sharp teeth, all soft around the edges. And his knuckles brushed the back of Solus’s fingers briefly, softly, intimate in a way that Shepard couldn’t possibly understand. It would be almost unfair if he did. 

EDI rang soft over the intercoms, reminding them that it was two hours into Omega shift, and Shepard jerked, startled, surprised in a way that he was not often.  _ Expressive _ in a way that he was not often, Solus corrects, because Shepard never hesitated to inform his companions when he was surprised, but it was rare to see it on his face. Shepard had been more expressive in the last thirty minutes than Solus thinks he had ever seen, a rare gift that is… humbling. Shepard paused on his way out, close enough to press his hip against Solus's side, his lips against the crest of Solus's head. There was the murmur of "sleep well", barely more than a whisper, felt more than heard.

Solus stood there in the light for a while yet, work to process what had happened. 

When he finally slept, and Shepard followed him even there. 

**Author's Note:**

> Will there be more of this? Your guess is as good as mine.


End file.
